A continuing challenge in food production is finding enough water and arable land to feed the world's population. Shortages of arable land and fresh water are among the most urgent global problems. Arable land is limited and its availability is shrinking. Forty-three percent of the earth's total land is arid or semiarid. Further, it has been estimated that 25 million hectares of agricultural land are lost every year as a result of increased soil salinity. As the world population continues to grow, steadily devouring existing farmland and water supplies previously used for crops, the demand increases for food and fresh water for human consumption.
In preparation for the future demand for additional sources of arable land, researchers have attempted to determine whether crops can be grown by irrigation of soils with seawater. One attempt involves the development of land-based seawater farming of salt-tolerant plants (such as Salicornia) by irrigation with seawater. The challenge, however, is that the majority of terrestrial plants are intolerant to high levels of salinity. The accumulation of salt in the soil when it is irrigated with seawater eventually kills even salt-tolerant plants because salt accumulation in soil eventually exceeds their tolerance limit.
There have been some advances in methods and systems for growing salt-tolerant terrestrial plants in ocean water, but these current systems and methods are limited. For example, these systems and methods have only been designed to maintain a narrow range of conditions suitable for growing a few salt-tolerant plants. While there have been some advances in methods and systems for growing other plants such as seaweed plants integrated with cultivation of fish in ocean water or marine environment, these systems continue to have shortcomings, for example and fast growth of algae and fungus within the system limits production and quality of the seaweed plants yielded from the system. Commercially produced seaweed is grown in tanks in which vast amounts of nutrients are pumped into the system and the water is continuously filtered to remove waste produced by, for example fish in the system, algae or other growth in the system, or accumulation of debris and waste from the growing seaweed. Additionally, commercial production of seaweed in air turbulent tanks requires carbon dioxide supplementation in the system.
Further, global climate change is putting an ever increasing demand on agriculturists, farmers, horticulturists, etc. to respond rapidly to changing weather and climate conditions. For example, in the case of a large agronomic or hydroponic farm, an agriculturist, horticulturist, farmer, etc. needs to be able to rapidly apply irrigation, chemicals, fertilizer, etc. to all the crops under their care. Accomplishing this manually or even determining manually whether irrigation, chemicals, fertilizer, etc. should be applied is a herculean task that would requires numerous employees and a general knowledge of weather indicators and patterns, which is difficult for any one person to effectively master.
Lastly, the control of insects, fungi, and bacteria on cultivated plants has proven difficult without using chemicals or genetically modified organisms. Compounding this issue is that many pesticides have restricted use in water or marine environments and there is an ever-growing demand for organic food sources.
Thus, growing seaweed can be an expensive and time-consuming undertaking, and growing other salt-tolerant edible plants can be challenging, at best. Additionally, it is difficult to effectively and rapidly respond to changing weather and climate conditions and to know when conditions will change and to what end. Lastly, it is difficult to control algae and other pests in marine environments without the use of pesticides or genetic engineering. Accordingly, there is a need for new and useful saline aquaculture systems and related methods of use.